The ELBO top ten
April 23As this has been an interesting week in the life of student government and perhaps because I'm feeling a little nostalgic about graduating, I thought now was a good time to take a step back and get some perspective on controversies currently surrounding the Presidential election and the Elections Board (ELBO). The truth is that this stuff has been going on forever, and this isn't even the worst of it. Before I continue, let me take a moment to encourage all students to vote today in the Presidential election and to vote for the constitutional amendment. Now, constitutional confusion is an innate feature of our student government process here at Tufts. Many people today, Election Day, feel jilted, cheated, and downright beaten down by all the ridiculous late-night meetings, circuitous appeals and complaints, and the seeming philandering of elected representatives. If we look at our history, however, some might take comfort in the knowledge that spring 2003 only ranks midway on the scale of sad and tragic events in the student government timeline. To prove this, I have prepared my personal ELBO Top Ten List, noting in order of idiocy, some of the more fabled events of my short Tufts experience. It's important point out that ELBO doesn't really deserve all the blame for the troubles of student government. They're just easy to pick on. And fun. But so it goes: 10. In the spring of 2001, after Election Day, ELBO decides to not count votes on two constitutional referenda because of concerns of fairness and impartiality relating to an erroneous ELBO e-mail. Outgoing TCU President David Moon filed a complaint about the board and the TCUJ ruled that the ballots must be counted. The worst part of the debacle is that is took -- no joke -- weeks for ELBO to get around to counting the ballots and publicizing the result. 9. In the fall of 2000, after receiving wide criticism for a scaled-down and generally poorly thought out Senate election, ELBO Chair Bruce Kessler and member Sandy Fried comment in the Daily that they are understaffed and have decided that they cannot hold any more elections until the Board got more members. Kessler said that if he didn't think he could hold a fair election, then they shouldn't have any elections at all. In the meantime, a vacated CSL position remains empty, along with the dusty ELBO seats. 8. After being the odds-on favorite to win the Presidential election since November, Randy Newsom drops out of the TCU Presidential election after he runs for and receives the Senate's nomination. Newsom's decision to leave the race is a personal one and well within his right, but it deserves to make the top ten list out of sheer irony and because of the downward spiral his decision created -- a spiral that will not finish winding for another two years. 7. In the spring of 2001, the Dean of Students Office sends out a pro-constitutional amendment e-mail to all students under the guise of an election announcement and with a return address of TheElectionBoard@tufts.edu, even though the letter was written by then-TCU Parliamentarian Ben Lee, the chair of the constitutional reform committee. ELBO proceeds to freak out and cancel the election, only to have Jesse Levey file a complaint against them, leading to a 2 a.m. TCUJ meeting the night before the election in order to decide if there should be an election at all. Much sleep was lost by all parties, and the fiasco became the centerpiece of the controversy noted in #10. 6. This one doesn't relate to any specific ELBO controversy, but it sure did create many of them. The TCU states that for a constitutional referendum if at least 25 percent of students vote on it, then it needs a majority of votes to pass. But, it goes on, if less than 25 percent of students but more than 20 percent cast ballots, the item needs a two-third affirmative vote to pass. Of course, if less than 20 percent of campus votes, the initiative is dead even if 100 percent of people voting voted for it. In addition to being monumentally stupid, these rules laid the groundwork for such skullduggery as what exactly is a vote, a non-vote, an abstention, or a cast ballot; how many students actually go to Tufts; and the inspiration for campus interest groups to canvas students to not vote on an amendment at all because then there would be a better chance that it'd fail because of low turnout than if people actually showed up and voted against it. 5. ALSO in the spring of 2001, ELBO decides that in order for the Presidential election to be valid, the margin between the candidates had to be at least eight percent. This decision came after two and a half hours of debate over whether to count the presidential ballots at all as a result of a complaint filed against ELBO that day alleging voter fraud. It wasn't until 3:30 a.m. that ELBO announced that Eric Greenberg had won the election. How ELBO decided that eight percent was a reasonable number is curious, as is the idea that any margin of victory would be acceptable if there was in fact election fraud on any level. 4. Ralan Hill, a TCU Senator, files a complaint with the TCUJ that a constitutional amendment on the spring 1999 ballot to create a presidential cabinet should be thrown out because students studying aboard were not given the opportunity to vote on it. G-d bless Ralan Hill, because probably no one else would. Hill is victorious in his argument and ELBO puts a clause in their bylaws that all students studying abroad must be allowed to vote. However, Hill fights on against the cabinet. He may be the patriarch of the modern Tufts student government constitutional crisis. From Ghana, Hill waged a campaign that lasted ten months and, at various points, butted heads with all four student government bodies at Tufts. 3. Dropping out of a presidential race is one thing, but that Randy believed (as did everyone else, including ELBO) that dropping out somehow meant he could rescind the nomination that the Senate gave him is another question entirely. ELBO's decision to hold an emergency Senate meeting led to some serious d?©j? vu in student government, culminating with three presidential nominations meetings, a whole bunch of official complaints levied against several student government bodies and an election date that was moved three times. This doesn't rate that high because, in the end, nothing really happened except for a few extra meetings over the course of a week. Unless, of course, you count total confusion over the election, who is actually running, and the legitimacy of a campaign that lasted either two and a half weeks or one day depending on who you ask. 2. In the spring of 1999, ELBO throws out the votes on the Presidential election between Larry Harris and Vivek Ramgopal because of accusations of election fraud. It seems that poll workers didn't show up for their shifts, so there were times when the ballots were sitting there unsupervised and people complained that students were casting multiple ballots. It is rumored and probably forever unverifiable that while Larry was eventually elected TCU President that Vivek actually won the first ballot. But only the people in the dark, smoke-filled room know for sure. 1. In the fall of 1999, as part of the Presidential Cabinet saga, ELBO, the Senate, and the TCUJ get embroiled in further conflicts, arguments, and constitutional mishaps. Highlights included the TCUJ ruling that there must be a revote on the constitutional amendment to create a presidential cabinet but the Senate declaring that it may or may not decide to have another vote at all. Questions as to why the Senate should be in a position to make that statement should be kept to yourselves. During one of the early TCUJ hearings on the matter, the lone member of ELBO resigned mid-meeting and left the room. The situation for student government worsened all around and culminated in both the TCU Senate President and the TCUJ Chair calling for each other's resignation in open meetings, but not before the TCUJ filed a complaint with the CSL against the Senate for ignoring it and certainly not before Senate President Larry Harris, along with Co-Parliamentarian Jesse Levey, published a Viewpoint in the Daily announcing that they would in fact ignore the TCUJ and all its rulings, hearings, etc. Matthew Kane is a senior majoring in Economics.
